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Lower oil prices won't, by themselves, topple the mullahs in Iran. But it's significant that, historically, when oil prices have been low, Iranian reformers have been ascendant and radicals relatively subdued, and vice versa when prices have been high.

James Surowiecki

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James Surowiecki
Age: 57
Born: 1967
Born: April 30
Journalist
Writer
Meriden
Connecticut
James Michael Surowiecki
High
Vice
Radicals
Lower
Subdued
Oil
Reformers
Iran
Versa
Vices
Iranian
Radical
Historically
Ascendant
Significant
Relatively
Mullahs
Lows
Prices
Topple

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I tend to delay writing by doing more research - it's really the act of writing the piece that I have the hardest time with.
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Corporate welfare isn't necessarily a bad thing.
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From a social point of view, it's beneficial that homeownership encourages commitment to a given town or city. But, from an economic point of view, it's good for people to be able to leave places where there's less work and move to places where there's more.
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Standards wars involve lots of variables, and understanding them often seems more an art than a science. They generally involve just two big players, and end in a winner-take-all situation.
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The Internet has become a remarkable fount of economic and social innovation largely because it's been an archetypal level playing field, on which even sites with little or no money behind them - blogs, say, or Wikipedia - can become influential.
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Sometimes even a smart crowd will make a mistake.
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Movies' mistrust of capitalism is almost as old as the medium itself.
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If being the biggest company was a guarantee of success, we'd all be using IBM computers and driving GM cars.
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The profit motive, indecorous though it may seem, may represent the best chance the poor have to reap some of globalization's benefits.
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In confusing stock options with ownership, corporations confuse trappings with substance.
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Of course, presidents are always blamed or rewarded for the state of the economy.
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On Wall Street, fraudulent schemes tend to thrive during economic booms, and to blow up when times turn tough.
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Punk rock has never really had much patience with musical virtuosity. Actually, it'd be more accurate to say that for most of its history, punk has been actively hostile to virtuosity.
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Nike used to be known as Blue Ribbon Sports. What's now Sara Lee used to be Consolidated Foods. And Exxon was once Standard Oil Company of New Jersey. These were name changes that worked. But for all the ones that do, there are 10 or 20 that don't.
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